Everyone, sometime in their life, has shed a tear. Crying is natural, instinctive, and a result of an emotion triggered from an event. Whether tears flow from an emotion of happiness or sadness, joy or sorrow, it’s clear why we’re crying. We know why we’re crying. It’s black and white.
The loss of a family member, your engagement, walking down the aisle with your dad, or watching Rose tell Jack in the middle of the Atlantic that she’ll never let go. Black and white tears all around.
Tears are black and white.
Well, at least that’s what I thought.
After becoming pregnant, I quickly realized that my tears were no longer black and white. I couldn’t figure out my emotions or explain why I was crying.
Enter gray tears.
My first experience with gray tears happened the day I found out I was pregnant. With bags of groceries scattered on the kitchen floor, I hardly finished my business before a bright plus sign so vivid and clear it could have jumped out of the test and slapped me across the face appeared. Naturally, I started to cry, but I didn’t know why. My emotions were all over the place, but with what?
Excitement? Nervousness? Shock? Semi-frustration that there was no one to share the news with besides a half-melted quart of double chocolate chunk on my kitchen floor?
I kept that positive ‘momento’ on the bathroom counter and frequently snuck peeks throughout the day just to check if the plus sign was still, indeed, a plus. Every time I got close to the bathroom I would start to cry. Not the pretty, angelic, tears streaming down your cheeks type crying you see in the movies, but rather the short breath, partial gag, pull yourself together type crying. What in the world was happening to me?
That was just the beginning. I had occasional “moments” throughout the duration of my pregnancy but nothing made me cry more than the Today Show. I can’t tell you if it was their featured stories on kindness and perseverance or the fact that Savannah Guthrie was due with her first baby a few weeks before me, but gray tears galore.
Now, black and white tears don’t take a vacation during pregnancy. They still exist. One would assume a first-time mother would cry during ultrasounds or after the birth of their baby, but I didn’t. Where were you tears? This was your obvious black and white moment.
I think I was in such awe of the detailed ultrasound and then astonishment when his face surfaced with open eyes. Yes, his eyes were open. We were having an owl. And apparently mom owls don’t cry.
And when he was born I was exhilarated that he was here and healthy (and that labor was over, let’s be honest), but also partially delusional. Any moms who have labored between the hours of 12am and 5am feel me. I just wanted to snuggle and love him. The experience was tear-free.
But I did have black and white experiences that I remember vividly. The first was about my belly button (please hold judgments) and the fact it was being stretched beyond recognition.
Yeah, it’s aesthetic after delivering what felt like an owl turned mini-dinosaur was on my mind, but it was the pain that caused the sniffles. I could feel my skin stretch with every laugh and subtle abdominal twist. Prenatal yoga, forget about it.
The second black and white experience came after I let myself get caught up in the realization that it would never just be my husband and me again. It had been just the two of us for years, we had our routine and the thought of throwing an owl another human into the mix sent my emotions into overdrive.
Don’t worry, the Today Show quickly put these black and white weeps in check.
After our son was born, I figured the gray tears were just part of pregnancy and a thing of the past. Not so fast. Five days post-partum and the night before my husband was to return to work, we were enjoying supper and the flood gates opened. He asked all the right questions and said all the right things, but I couldn’t get my poop in a group. I didn’t know what caused the waterworks nor could I shut them off. I just cried into my plate. Although I chalk this specific episode up to hormones and minimal sleep, I realized that gray tears were here to stay.
As moms, we frequently look for reasoning and justification to the whys. But the truth is, motherhood is a sandbox of emotion and answers to the black and white aren’t always going to be available. Or explainable.
Motherhood adds gray to black and white.
So go ahead and cry when you need to, moms, it’s okay. Crying, whether black and white or gray, is natural, instinctive, and cathartic.
On many occasions, motherhood has unexplainably moved me to tears.
